@Mondo I might be the only one, but I knew what you meant. It was clear to me.
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A top judge’s perspective on some of the issues frequently discussed in threads like this one, and others here:
I translated it to English in large sections using Google translate. He is throwing out some radical ideas for reforms.
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sigh. This would never happen. I am going to online showing to get feedback and not expose my horses to the stress of shows. The shows can eff themselves. I am not renewing any of my memberships going forward, unless or until they address the horrific abuse that the judging has created.
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If you want feedback and live in an area with access to judges, I suggest that for the price of a lesson you can get great feedback. When I was showing, for show prep I scheduled a “test riding lesson” with a local judge.
What we did was to ride the test, movement by movement. At each movement, we stopped, she gave a critique, continued until the test was finished. I then rode the whole test and she scored it. The verbal feedback was better than the scribble in the judge comments boxes.
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I am going to write “blasphemy” here.
I think that present day competitive dressage riders NEED to learn how to ride ASBs effectively.
Why? I have noticed that there are properly ridden dressage WBs, and that those properly ridden WBs look a LOT like an ASB, especially with today’s emphasis on showy gaits.
When I started to ride with a double bridle decades ago I did it with just my wonderful horse teaching me how to use it. I just could not afford the dressage lessons, and this was back in the day when I would ask hunt seat teachers how to get lighter hands and they ALL told me I needed to learn dressage. But today? I do not consider that many of the competitive dressage riders have light hands, if they had light hands their horses’ faces would not be behind vertical at all, they would not need super tight nosebands to keep their horse’s mouth shut, and the horses would not “need” to have holes poked in their sides to perform the gaits properly by violently spurring the poor horse.
Nowadays the only method of riding that uses an English saddle that I consider more abusive than dressage is the “Big Lick” TWH riding.
I KNOW that there are good, humane, and skilled dressage riders. Too bad that they cannot seem to win ribbons in the dressage shows since super abusive riding seems today to me one of the “requirements” to WIN at the top competitions of dressage.
Today, if anybody asked me the best way to learn to use a double bridle, I would immediately tell them to go to a ASB lesson barn. The ASBs in their saddle seat classes do not seem to go behind the vertical when they are ridden by good riders.
I NEVER thought that I would ever consider saddleseat riders superior to dressage riders, but what I see from the videos of dressage shows and lessons has opened my eyes, the Saddleseat people are just better riders than most dressage riders (and to be completely honest they are probably better than most hunt seat riders on the flat.) Their horses have their heads up, poll highest, their riders (the good ones) do not seem to have abusive contact, and their horses can perform without constant spurring.
Many decades ago I considered most Saddleseat riding and training methods to be abusive, especially the loooong hooves, biting rigs and tail sets. Today? Well I in no way consider saddleseat to be the best way to ride horses but their horses sure look a lot better educated for fine riding than the dressage horses and they look like they are much more fun to ride.
Flame suit on.
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100% false. Saddleseat riders are not and never will be “better riders than most dressage riders” Riding is MUCH MUCH more than hands on the reins. Saddleseat riders do not RIDE. They are perched on a flat saddle that cannot and does not distribute the weight. They sit in a fork seat and tend to be behind the motion of the horse. That they have contact on the bits is immaterial. Please look at the photo below. You are right, the horse’s nose is not BTV. It is entirely closed at the throat latch, however, which is similar to what we are decrying about international dressage. Look where the rider’s hands are. Were you taught, as I was, that there should be a straight line from the horse’s mouth to the rider’s elbow? This girl has her hands so high as to form a pyramid between the bit and her hands. It’s horrifying. We are discussing dressage here, not saddleseat and I don’t think your comparison is a valid one. That said, your opinion is fine, but don’t ever try to sell the notion that saddleseat riders are “better” than dressage riders. Not even close.
ETA: the horse in the photo (which is of an equitation class, BTW) has its mouth open. So I don’t see an appreciable difference between this and the “blue tongue” dressage riders.
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While I don’t agree at all with the original assertion that they are better riders, I did want to address this.
Saddlebreds often are busy chewers and lip flappers. The mouth is not open but the lips are. It’s very different than the blue tongue. You cannot use the same force on a saddleseat horse as many dressage horses. They WILL flip over. I’ve had pictures of my horse with his little old lips open and mouth open with loose and floppy reins. They are mouthy creatures.
And while this girl (who I think might be Ali DeGray) appears to be in the back seat, this is a 3 gaited performance horse (shaved mane) and she is riding in slick satin pants and a flat saddle. My guess is that many of us would be right off the back of that horse. The higher hands are a saddleseat anomaly and are not always how they are ridden - I dislike that too, but it’s common in professionals, I think to raise the head which is desirable in saddleseat world.
They do ride. It’s a challenge to ride in those saddles and you do not just sit up there. In my saddleseat lessons, coming from hunter and dressage land I was constantly admonished for under-riding - to get the best performance out of a horse there’s a lot of rather full body riding that you have to do. Again - that’s not better or worse, but it looks different.
I think there’s a “rein usage” difference that is difficult to understand - and at more than one barn saddleseat riders are taught contact by using toilet paper tied to a chair. I really don’t think there’s a ton of comparison because of how dressage riders use the bits vs saddleseat riding. They both ride the horse TO the bit, but I was taught that there was potentially a lot more (1 lb+) weight in the reins in my dressage lessons vs the saddleseat lessons where they wanted 0 lb weight in the reins and the horse sort of behind the bit.
I don’t think you can fully compare the two, but I do understand what Jackie was saying about the usage of the bits.
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And this doesn’t show tension? I think it does. I’ve retrained a number of 3 gaited saddlers to dressage and have never had one flap the lips or show any sort of nervousness under saddle. For the record, Alterration and Jackie, I was restarting OTTBs at a saddlebred show barn many years back. I saw what they did to those horses to get them show ready. I drew the line when the trainer was in the middle of the ring, tossing lit firecrackers at the feet of the horses going round to get them to step higher. Those horses looked like they were about to explode. But of course they couldn’t since their front legs were tied together with surgical tubing. Sorry, I got a VERY bad taste in my mouth for saddleseat from that. I have ZERO respect for it.
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Oh I’m not disagreeing that it doesn’t show tension (howabout that for a sentence) but it isn’t evidence of hauling on the mouth. Saddleseat saddlebreds can be quite tense because they are bottled up for show. But they don’t claim to value relaxation. Apples and parachutes.
I can talk about some of the practices in greater detail but it always has struck me as funny that people applaud police horse training but denigrate saddleseat training for the same thing.
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No blasphemy. I agree with you.
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Again, we should not be comparing dressage to any other discipline. We need to clean up dressage. We need to address what has evolved over the last 25-30 years.
I totally agree with the posted article. No matter how much basic talent a horse has, it still has to learn every single step on the training scale, and then learn them again and again as collection is increased. A horse that is built naturally very uphill will not learn to engage its core to carry weight uphill and will overstress it’s legs, unless given the chance to develop its core.
Many of these “top” riders using questionable techniques go through horses like bags of chips. Why? Because they push further faster.
I very much dislike the young horse tests because they encourage people to train more than the horse can handle at the moment. These are nothing more than breeder showcase classes and should not be considered pipeline classes as the US leaders have said they are. Why would you want your pipeline horses to be started at two so that they can win at four and be doing FEI by 7?
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No one is being forced to take their young horse into the FEI young horse tests. It’s an option. And I know of no trainer starting two year olds unless they are thoroughbreds for the track or reining horses being prepared for the three year old futurity classes.
I don’t have a problem with the FEI Five and Six year old tests, or developing PSG or developing GP . Not every warmblood can do these tests at those ages, and that’s okay. These tests aren’t for every dressage horse prospect.
Are there some horses being “pushed” into these classes?..yes there are. Just as there are horses being “pushed” into second and third level: not based on their age but based on the desire of the rider and or trainer to move up the ladder.
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One more thing about that photo - it’s not an equitation class no matter how it is labeled. How do I know? She is wearing the wrong clothes and black gloves.
For additional clarification and context - firecrackers are sometimes used in front of the horse. They create smoke, and saddlebreds do not spook away from them but puff up and march toward the smoke. At a saddlebred show there is a lot of noise and excitement - you want a horse who boldly marches into battle, with ears forward and proud - not a chicken horse that spooks and spins. So the airing up has two purposes. One trainer near me used a glittery pompom to help get their attention - the horses aren’t scared of the pompom, they often go pick it up and play with it, but when shaken in front of them down the line they pick up their heads and pump their knees and trot boldly towards it.
The horses are not typically distraught though they may be tense. The reason for the tension is that in performance classes they are pushed to the very edge of athleticism in the trot and canter. A normal class is similar in exertion to a racehorse racing.
Not your cup of tea, that’s fine. But it all has a purpose, and a context, as do all disciplines, dressage included.
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BTW I linked the article for you, because it’s about your fav subject…but it seems to be not interesting….
I appreciate the article, it is very interesting. Thank you.
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What are you talking about?
Maybe you should keep track of the posts in a thread you created 
You posted a link to an article with nothing further. What do you want me to do?
And FYI…I read the article and agree with it…for clarification in case you continue with your obtuse posts.
How about you?
Oh no please dont use words I can’t know because English is not my native language …
I thought you would like the arguments of those German judges because as far as I know you are against the prioritization of gaits in todays dressage tests… So I believed you would comment on it….
and regarding my opinion about it….
I am sure that you missed my post about Anja Beran as well. I went to audit one of her speeches last fall and was very impressed. She basically said the same….
